


You Are Here

by moiraes



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-02 13:38:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moiraes/pseuds/moiraes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d only allowed himself to daydream about Arthur’s return a few times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lawgoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawgoddess/gifts).



> Happy holidays, lawgoddess! I've written a (brief) reincarnation fic for you. I'd hoped to include a few more of your tropes (and so many scenes I've had in my head for the past year) but university unfortunately ate up more time than I expected. I hope you enjoy it regardless and have a great rest of 2013 ♥

Dying had been slow, all quiet, painful breaths and a vague sense of disconnect until all that was left was freefalling into nothingness.

It makes sense that reawakening would be the opposite. He feels nothing, and then everything all at once. Small, building flows of energy cradle him into awareness like waves lapping at the shore. He opens his eyes, breathes in, and chokes.

\---

The pieces came together in fits and starts: the smell of wet grass, the raw burn in his lungs, the sounds of someone’s laboured breathing, the taste of lake water, and, finally, the sun blazing in the clear sky. He lay there for several moments, his thoughts coalescing until he came to a startling realisation: he was alive. Getting to his feet took an alarming amount of effort, and it was only when he was upright that he noticed he was not alone.

An old man was crouched on all fours beside the lake, dripping wet and panting harshly into the ground.

Quite suddenly, Arthur remembered -- choking, flailing confusion, and then arms, pulling him from the water. He staggered over to the elderly man and gripped his arm, helping him up. “Thank you,” he said with a raspy voice once the two were eye to eye. “I think you saved my life.”

The man just stared, blue eyes wide with something that made Arthur’s heart ache. There were a few moments of strange silence, like the breath before a plunge -- and then the man began to laugh. The harsh, eerie noise raised goosebumps on Arthur’s arms and he felt paralysed, unable to do anything but watch as the old man doubled over in laughter that diminished into sobs.

He couldn’t say how he knew, only that he did. “Merlin.”

Merlin -- for it had to be, even as unrecognisable as he was -- just continued heaving hoarse, wrenching sobs as Arthur leant down to place a hand on his shoulder. The two men crouched there, half-huddled and soaked, for what seemed like forever, silent but for the broken gasps as Merlin’s breathing calmed.

When he was finally still, Arthur withdrew his hand and swallowed past the tightness in his throat. “Are you all right?” It was a stupid question, he knew, but what else could he say?

When Merlin looked at him, he saw traces of Dragoon in the aged face, but none of the manservant he’d once thought he’d known -- until he gave Arthur a twisted, shaky grin. “Took you long enough.” There he was. 

Arthur grinned back, feeling the knot in his chest slowly begin to unravel.

\---

He hadn’t thought about Arthur in a while.

At the beginning, Merlin had been unable to think of anything _but_ Arthur and Camelot, torturing himself by going over everything in his head. He’d thought back and pointed out everything that had gone wrong, creating elaborate scenarios of ‘what if’ -- what if he’d got to the lake in time? What if he’d struck Morgana down before she could stab Arthur? What if he’d killed Mordred the moment he’d heard of the damned prophecy? What if he’d never gone to the cave, had never poisoned Morgana, had successfully healed Uther, had never --

There was no other word for it but ‘torture’. He’d sat for years, thinking back to every moment he could’ve said something true, could’ve revealed himself to Arthur. He should’ve done so many things differently -- including turning around the moment he’d walked into Camelot and saw that damning chopping block.

He’d sat, wallowing in sorrow and pity and regret and fury for the better part of a decade, descending into fits of rage and self-loathing when it became obvious that no amount of neglect or recklessness would result in his death. Why was it that he had to live on when so many good men, better men than he, were cut down?

It took the fall of Camelot to snap him out of his fugue. When word reached him of Guinevere’s forced abdication, shame marred the grey blend of emotions he’d been living with for so long. He didn’t know how long he’d live. Perhaps it’d be forever -- and wasn’t that a bleak thought. He couldn’t spend the rest of his innumerous days like this. If nothing else, he owed it to Arthur, to Gwen, to Lancelot and Gwaine and Percival and Elyan, to Gaius, to the Camelot that should have been.

Time passed, and everything changed but him. The world forgot and rediscovered Camelot, changed though the stories were, and Merlin, his own memories dull and coloured with nearly a thousand years of other places, people, and things, soon realised that that was all they would ever be -- stories, even to himself, the last remnant of a tarnished golden age.

Forgetting, he told himself, was easier than dredging up the bittersweet memories and empty promises.

And now Arthur was here.

He’d only allowed himself to daydream about Arthur’s return a few times. They were never elaborate, only occasional thoughts to himself -- how he’d look in a ridiculous doublet and hose, the expression on his face at an aeroplane, his fury at men like Hitler. He’d pictured the reunion, how much it would hurt but how gloriously happy he would be, how he’d get to see Arthur’s grin, how he’d show him all the wonderful things the world had created -- he’d never considered “after”.

After was awkward and stilted. After was looking at Arthur’s face and realising that his memories of it had been ever so slightly wrong -- his mental Arthur’s teeth had been too crooked, nose too straight, hair too bright, eyes too blue. It was getting the two back to Merlin’s modest cottage in rural England without the cars giving Arthur a panic attack. It was removing the ageing spell so Arthur would finally look him in the eye. It was handing Arthur clean, dry, _modern_ clothes and realising he had no idea how to reconcile his life with Arthur’s return. After was sharing his small bed and hearing someone else’s snores and trying to suppress the blind panic and despair that arose in his chest as he began to understand that he couldn’t go back -- and he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to.

\---

Before, they’d slept alongside one another too many times to count, but it had never been quite like this. Whether it was on pallets around a fire, on the cold floor of a cavern, or even the few times they’d drunkenly sprawled across Arthur’s four-poster bed, laughing until they fell asleep, there had always been a sense of comfort and ease that had accompanied their every interaction from that first disastrous meeting. Now, four days _after_ , Arthur lay on the left side of Merlin’s bed and realised that he’d never felt so ill at ease around his former manservant. 

When Merlin had looked at him all those years ago, grief and guilt making his voice thick around the word “sorcerer”, Arthur had still been able to see the man he’d thought he’d known behind it -- and in some ways, it had felt worse for it. How could he equate magic and sorcery, ideas that had corrupted and stolen from everyone he’d ever loved, with Merlin? They’d stood by one another through love and death and joy and betrayal and Arthur had thought they’d _known_ each other, fully and openly -- but as hard as it was to make peace with the idea that that man and the man in front of him, someone who could fell whole armies and create a dragon from embers with just a wave of his hand, were one and the same, he had been able to accept it before the end. “His” Merlin, the one who’d laugh like an idiot and look at him with unabashed devotion, was still there.

But time had apparently done what even magic could not: this Merlin felt like a stranger.

And Arthur had had enough. “Talk to me,” he said, not daring to look to his right as the words stumbled from his lips. “Please. This is the fifth night I’ve been here and you’ve barely said a word.”

Merlin’s voice, when it finally came, contained genuine surprise. “What? I’ve said plenty.”

The laugh that spilled from him sounded bitter and hollow to his own ears. “Sure, you’ve explained plumbing and ekeltricity --”

“Electricity,” Merlin corrected, the same automatic response he’d had the last few times Arthur had mangled the word, and it made Arthur’s blood boil.

“What does it matter?” he cried, sitting bolt upright, suddenly and wholly finished with it all. “Science, water, inventions, cars, _I don’t care_. I don’t care. I do care that you haven’t-- you aren’t-- just. Talk to me. Say something real.”

“What do you want me to say?” Merlin sat up as well, but Arthur refused to look over. He didn’t know if he could bear to look at Merlin’s face and see the distance that even the darkness couldn’t hide.

“I don’t know,” Arthur said, and hated himself for it, just as he hated the ball of guilt and anger and regret and acute loneliness that had taken residence in his chest since that afternoon on the lakeside. “I just-- I don’t know.”

“Arthur,” Merlin began, confusion evident in his voice, but he trailed off into silence. Apparently he didn’t know what to say either.

Arthur drew in a shaky breath and finally managed to pinpoint what was making him so uncomfortable. “I’m back,” he said, and fisted his hand in the quilt that covered his legs, trying to make sense of the embarrassment and resentment he couldn’t shake off. “It’s been ages, and I can’t even begin-- just, stop. Stop treating me like I’m just passing through, like I’m some visitor you’re just putting up with until you can be rid of me.”

The silence that followed his words felt different, bewilderment replaced with a deliberate sort of patience. “‘Putting up with’?” Merlin repeated, and Arthur didn’t know whether to be happy or upset with the edge to Merlin’s tone that warned he was treading in dangerous waters.

He hesitated only a moment, then plowed on: he’d dealt with an angry Merlin before. An angry Merlin was familiar in ways that the strangely polite, walled-off Merlin he’d been dealing with the past few days was not. “You’ve been humouring me, introducing me to television and showers and ovens, treating me like some eccentric, stupid cousin on holiday. You haven’t said a word that matters, not really. You’ve been alone for so long, but I know--”

“No,” Merlin said, voice quiet and tight with a million things Arthur couldn’t name. “No, you don’t know.” He got up with a creak of the bed, and in the dim light Arthur watched as his silhouette walked to the window and stared out, fists clenched and shaking. “You have no idea, so just-- don’t.”

“Then tell me!” Arthur cried, also rising to his feet. “How am I supposed to have any idea if you won’t tell me something, _anything_?”

Merlin’s palm slammed against the window, jarring Arthur back into tense silence. For a minute that felt like an hour, the only sounds Arthur could hear was the blood humming in his ears and the rain that was starting to patter on the roof and window. “You _are_ ‘just passing through,’” Merlin said, finally, the anger gone, his voice returning to the horribly even aloofness. He turned around, finally facing Arthur, and gave him a wry smile. “I’ve been here for nearly a millennia and a half, Arthur. You’re back and that’s--” He cut himself off and looked down at the floor, swallowing loudly enough for even Arthur to hear. “It’s wonderful,” he continued, looking up once more. “But I don’t know why you’re back now, of all times. And even if it’s not to fight some war or right some wrong, even if you live to be a hundred and die in your bed, you’re still going to die. And I’m not.”

Arthur didn’t know how to react. “So is this how you live now?” he asked, hoping the hurt and disbelief he felt wasn’t obvious. “Do you just not let yourself be close to anyone because we’re all going to die?” It seemed incongruous with the man he’d once known. That Merlin had been so attached to everything, so ridiculously present and in tune and _alive_. It was horribly and painfully ironic that this Merlin had let his immortality transform him into the opposite.

“Do you know how much it hurts, watching everyone and everything you know die? It wasn’t just you and Camelot, you know. I made friends, over dozens of generations. I had homes all over the world. I even fell in love a few times. And everyone left, sooner rather than later.” Arthur had wanted to know, still wanted to know, but it hurt to hear the bitterness and pain obvious in every word. “Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t all been pain,” Merlin said, his voice almost nonchalant despite the humourless laugh that accompanied his words. “I got to see so much beauty and splendour, far more than anyone else could ever hope to see. I just learnt that it’s easier to take it all in when I know and accept that it’s only temporary.”

“Bollocks.”

“I’m sorry?”

It had slipped out without a second thought, but Arthur refused to take it back. “Yes, all right, I’m going to die. That’s not going to change whether it’s in six months or six decades. But you can’t honestly tell me that it’s better to just… I don’t know, sit back. Do you really think just going, ‘Ah, well, that’s life, better not let myself be happy now because it’ll all come tumbling down sooner or later’ is really the best thing you can do with your literally infinite life? That’s not only stupid, it’s selfish.”

The stupor Merlin had seemed shocked into broke and he advanced on Arthur until the two were nearly nose to nose. “Selfish?” he repeated, his voice shaking. “Don’t you dare, Arthur. Just-- you-- don’t.”

“I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to go through,” Arthur said, reaching forward to brush a lock of hair from Merlin’s eyes. He did his best to ignore the way Merlin flinched from him, and carried on. “But please, don’t shut me out. I’m selfish, too, you see,” he said, forcing a grin. “I’m not going to be here forever.” He averted his gaze from Merlin’s, unable to look him in the eye as he admitted, “And I don’t think I could spend however long I am here with you treating me like I’m already dead. Again.”

When he looked back up, Merlin’s eyes were screwed shut, his breath ragged as he reached out with one hand to clutch at Arthur’s shoulder. It was the first contact Merlin had initiated since his return, and Arthur revelled in it, grieving for all the things they’d lost.

Merlin’s quiet voice broke through the stillness that had formed. “I can’t go back, Arthur.”

“No, I imagine not,” Arthur said, barely above a whisper. He thought of teasing jibes, of horses side by side, of a confessed ‘but if I wasn’t a prince’, of the smell of burning flesh, and of the betrayal that had somehow hurt more than the sword wound -- “I don’t think I could, either.”

It wasn’t until later, when they’d crawled back in bed and their breaths had evened out that Arthur spoke again. “Do you wish I hadn’t come back?” he whispered, half-hoping Merlin hadn’t heard as he was suddenly afraid of the answer.

“Don’t be an arse.” The retort came without missing a beat, and Arthur felt the bindings around his tattered heart loosen some.

“Fifteen hundred years and ‘arse’ is still the best you can come up with?”

The response was sleepy but padded with a warmth that Arthur had so desperately missed. “Well, I can’t very well call you a royal arse anymore, can I?”

They’d be okay.

\---

Despite the lingering sense of frailty, it was almost worryingly easy to adjust to life with Arthur. There were still plenty of road bumps, of course, but they fell into place, creating a near-domestic kind of existence that Merlin had never dared to hope for. Things between them had changed. An undercurrent that he had willfully ignored back in Camelot had made its way to the surface, charging their interactions with something frightening and exciting -- he didn’t dare examine the ‘why’ too closely.

Until Arthur kissed him.

There was no dramatic build up. They weren’t in a life-or-death situation, neither of them had been drinking, there was no long confession or declaration, no hint at all that it was coming. Merlin had simply looked up from his book and caught Arthur’s eye, and the next thing he knew, Arthur had crossed the room and leant in. There were no fireworks or world-stopping revelations. It was just soft lips, a warm hand on the back of his neck, and a shaky inhale as they broke apart, but Merlin was shattered all the same. Arthur looked at him and grinned, seeming far too bright and sure in the small space between them, and leant in again.

“Stop.” The noise tore itself out of Merlin’s throat almost unwillingly as he ducked his head. When he looked up again, Arthur’s joyful confidence was gone, replaced by an awful shuttered look that was far too reminiscent of the solemn kingly front Arthur had so rarely put up in his presence.

“I apologise,” Arthur said, confusion and hurt evident even through the stiff, unaffected tone he adopted. “I must have misread --”

Merlin couldn’t bear to look at that expression any longer. “No, you didn’t,” he said, his hand almost unconsciously reaching out to rest on Arthur’s chest. “I just-- just because this is convenient --” As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew they were the wrong ones.

But Arthur just sighed and visibly brushed the anger off. “You really weren’t kidding when you said being an idiot was just another part of your charms, were you?” 

Merlin bristled and made to respond but Arthur cut him off again. “No, listen, because apparently we need to talk about our feelings again.” He said it teasingly with no malice, but Merlin still felt a jab of annoyance at it. Arthur must have seen it, for his smile softened as he continued somewhat awkwardly, “There is no part of you that’s _convenient_. If I wanted convenient, I’d have kissed the clerk in the shop down the street or Mary next door. I’m not kissing you because you’re here or because you’re the only thing left from before. Just-- do you really not know this?”

He did. He hadn’t ever thought it’d turn out this way, but Merlin had seen it before and he definitely saw it now. It still didn’t make crossing the space between them any less terrifying, but he gathered up the last scraps of his courage and pulled Arthur in for another kiss -- even if it would destroy him later.

\---

This is not the end.

They live. They bicker about dishes and laundry and groceries. Merlin finds a grey strand in his hair. They laugh and argue and fall (back) in love again. And life, terrifyingly, wonderfully, incomprehensibly, goes on -- together.


End file.
